I took the Foreign Service Officer's Exam today at the College of Southern Nevada. I scheduled my test for 9:30am and the email that I received from the State Department was adamant about getting there on time and having all of the proper things: a valid ID, a print-out of its email, and no programmable electronic devices. The woman who proctored the exam was really laid back and told me she had no idea why I printed out the email. I got there at 9:05am and she let me sign in and take it right away. The test was alright. There were four sections and it took me about 3 hours to finish. I was allotted 40 minutes for the 50 Job Knowledge questions, 50 minutes for the 65 English Expression questions, 50 minutes for the 77 personality questions, and 30 minutes to complete one essay. I had used the Arco Study Guide to prepare for this test, and it was beyond shit. It didn't resemble the test at all. The Arco guide's practice tests gave me different numbers of questions to be answered in different amounts of time from the actual test. The Arco guide also divided the English Expression questions into four sections, only one of which was on the actual exam. Maybe the FSOE has been changed since Arco published its guide. If it hasn't, Arco has no excuse for how awful and unhelpful its guide is.
The English questions were much easier than I had anticipated but I'm sure I still got a bunch wrong. The Job Knowledge questions were either easy to answer because I knew the information, or impossible because I didn't. There were questions about the nations that border Afghanistan, areas of national policy where the US and Canada depart the most, and which president opened up relations with China.
If I could study for it all over again, I would have read a book on organizational behavior because it seemed like there were a lot of "which is the most important reason for a loss in productivity" type of questions. I think my score could go either way because I was so unsure of the majority of my answers. I don't think they were terrible answers, I'm just not that confident.
The essay had to do with intelligent use of natural resources and forming public policy. I said rainbows are magical and I wish I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV.
I can't believe I learned the capitals of all the Pacific island nations. New Caledonia? Noumea. Kiribati? South Tarawa.
Bitch.